If Israel behaved more 'morally' American and other Western Jews would have an easier time supporting it. But how can Israel behave 'morally' when it is a settler-colonial state? When have any settler-colonial societies behaved morally? It is an oxymoron.

Monday July 27, 2015, 3:21 pm
From September 2000 to mid-2005, hundreds of Palestinian suicide bombings and terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians killed more nearly 1,000 innocent people and wounded thousands of others.

In response, Israel's government decided to construct a security fence that would run near the “Green Line” between Israel and the West Bank to prevent Palestinian terrorists from easily infiltrating into Israel proper. Since construction of the fence began, the number of attacks has declined by more than 90%. The number of Israelis murdered and wounded has decreased by more than 70% and 85%, respectively, after erection of the fence.

ITS TIME that Americans stop posting anti-Israel materials that only help American enemies out. ISRAEL continues to help the United States deal with traditional security threats. ...U.S.-Israeli alliance now contributes more than ever to American security, as bilateral cooperation to deal with both military and nonmilitary challenges has grown in recent years.

The two countries share intelligence on terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and Middle Eastern politics . Israel's military experiences have shaped the United States' approach to counterterrorism and homeland security. The two governments work together to develop sophisticated military technology, such as the David's Sling counter-rocket and Arrow missile defense systems, which may soon be ready for export to other U.S. allies.

Tuesday July 28, 2015, 12:30 am
""The Israeli state does everything in its power to obscure the true meaning of the Zionist movement, and obliterate the memory of what Israel did back in 1947-1948. In an ongoing campaign of misinformation, miseducation, outright lies, omissions and a manipulation of basic tribal feelings of fear and the need to belong, Israel works persistently to rub out what it is doing right now. The story of Susiya demonstrates that the settler-colonial process is alive and well. Israel continues to erase Palestinian villages and towns in order to spread itself further, continue to conquer and replace the indigenous people with its own."

Tuesday July 28, 2015, 7:00 am
"So when I read this in the article from the Times of Israel, “Half of survey respondents said the Israeli army should strive for ‘a balance between morality and the fact that it is facing ruthless enemies who wish to destroy it’”, I feel deeply frustrated. This says so much about how little American Jews grasp what Israel really is. They want Israel to be ‘moral’? Citing views by American Jews the article also says, “In order for Jews to support Israel it must be better than other countries”, a discussion group participant from Dallas is quoted as saying. In Atlanta, someone said that “Diaspora Jews need to know that Israel is behaving morally.”

This illustrates the deepest problem within the American Jewish community and elsewhere in the West. If Israel behaved more ‘morally’ American and other Western Jews would have an easier time supporting it. But how can Israel behave ‘morally’ when it is a settler-colonial state? When have any settler-colonial societies behaved morally? It is an oxymoron. Settler-colonialism is a crime against humanity. A crime can’t behave morally….."

Tuesday July 28, 2015, 8:29 am
Grim but correct analysis: How can Israel behave more "morally" when it is in its core, its very being a settler-colonial state? But the author also states:"Israel has not changed for the worse, it’s always been bad." and "Israeli society has always been sick because you can’t build something healthy on a criminal foundation, where so much abuse has been, and still is being inflicted on others." With that he's taking away the last glimmer of hope, the belief that thing could change for the better which American Jews need to make the step from "uneasy with Israel" to acknowledging "Israel is wrong" and no longer support it as a reflex. They need the idea that withdrawing their unconditional support will make Israel change for the better.

Because the author seems to forget one thing: American Jews live in a country that has come into being under the same conditions: a settler-colonial state with a criminal foundation, where abuse has been, and still is being inflicted on others. As most Americans firmly believe that something healthy and good has come out of that, so do American Jews need to see a better and brighter future for Israel before they can recognize its current wrongs and denounce them. The author however leaves them with nothing, he gives no solutions: Israel will is bad bad and will stay bad and criminal no matter what.

Tuesday July 28, 2015, 9:24 am
Excellent article, thanks!
" I want to see true human courage to cope with the feelings that facing the truth about Israel can bring up. As long as they exclude the Palestinians, I won’t believe or trust any good deeds, or any humanitarian sentiments that Jews around the world have for marginalised, oppressed groups. Until they show true moral courage and conviction indiscriminately, I am just not buying it. I don’t have time or respect for those who are Progressive Except on Palestine".
I fully second these statements.
And Lona already mentioned what I was also going to add, re the US. However, those who no longer think that something good has come out of the US project as they are experiencing it day by day now, are growing fast.

Tuesday July 28, 2015, 11:19 am
Jess, it is indeed time to Americans to recognize that they were duped by funding Palestinian Arabs - "World Best Paid Refugees" - through UNWRA scam and lunatic policy, declaring any child of Palestinian Arab refugee to be another refugee.

Without those Billions of dollars given to Palestinian Arabs as cash, diverted from US health services and education, they would be much more willing to engage in meaningful peace negotiation.

No Arab Leader from West Bank or Gaza can refuse those Billions of Dollars for the sake of making peace and living like just another Arab state, or like another Palestinian Arab state of Jordan.

Tuesday July 28, 2015, 1:43 pm
It's time for pseudo-intellectuals to recognize they have been duped by the Arab PR machine.
So what's YOUR solution, Carrie? Cram all the Israelis into Tel Aviv? Send them back to their countries of origin? Exterminate them? Israel is a given. A 2-state solution has been offered (and rejected by Palestinians) since partition in 1948. Less than 4% of the land is still in dispute, but as long as Palestinians embrace Hazbollah's goals of eliminating Israel and raining missiles on it, there will be no peace. Why aren't you screaming for some PA cooperation?

Any viable & sustainable solution has to be worked out between Israelis and Palestinians - which requires a major effort of will to bring in and negotiate with the extremist fringes on both sides.

Bob & Barbara, as usual, try to present a polarised view - Israelis are wonderful but victims, the Palestinians the offenders ... This is typical of modern Zionist thought.

As discussed by Molyneux (The grim ‘logic’ of Zionism):
"Whatever the subjective intentions of its pioneers, whatever the ideals of the early kibbutzim, Israel would develop as an imperialist settler state and this had built into it a logic of racist barbarism.

Before returning to how this logic has worked itself out in the history of Zionist Israel we should remind ourselves that there is nothing unusual or specifically Jewish about this phenomenon. Racism against non-Europeans and people of colour as a whole arose from European enslavement and conquest of the rest of the world beginning at the end of the 15th century but it was always particularly virulent among settler populations who were at the sharp end of this process: think of the Boers (Dutch) in South Africa, the White Settlers in ‘Rhodesia’, the Australians and the Aborigines, the French Pieds Noir in Algeria and, of course, the European settlers in America.pushing relentlessly westwards at the expense of the Native Americans. To the settler the indigenous population – dispossessed and oppressed- is perceived as a permanent existential threat that needs to be ‘pacified’, subdued or disposed of and the ideological justification for this inevitably develops an intense racist dynamic.

Zionism, born out of a (profoundly mistaken) response to racism, has turned inexorably into one of the most extreme racisms on the face of the earth. Sometimes people are perplexed by this transformation. How, they ask, could a people who suffered so much persecution resort to behaviour that so mimics that of their erstwhile oppressors? Again it has to be said that such transformations are not rare in history. The Dutch who revolted against Spanish Habsburg rule in the 16th century establish in the Dutch Republic the most ‘liberal’, tolerant and progressive society in Europe at the time but the moment they became colonialists, in the Dutch East Indies, Southern Africa etc, they turned into brutal racists. Similarly the Puritans who went to North America to escape religious persecution in England become the initiators of the long genocide of the indigenous population and later the same fate befell many of the Irish emigrants. Or think of Cromwell himself – a (bourgeois) revolutionary hero in England; a monster in Ireland."

Wednesday July 29, 2015, 11:30 pm
Evelyn, Re: Molyneux's article, which "was written for the special Palestine Solidarity issue of Irish Socialist Worker." He has an ax to grind and uses the premise that every colonial power is corrupt, but that pertains to those founded on what Kipling called "the white man's burden." Israel wasn't designed to colonize a backwater country. It was a homeland carved from the newly defunct Ottoman Empire, in which Jews with ancient roots,as well as pre-WWII Zionists, and Arabs did coexist. Swampy lands were properly purchased from absentee Arab landlords and squatters were evicted. There was no stealing of land.
That Jews must be "more morally correct" than other groups is a heinous burden imposed by others "allowing" Jews to fit in. I know, as I was admonished to be better and turn the other cheek more than my peers. By teachers, social leaders, and friends. We couldn't just "pass" as ordinary people, we had to qualify on a superhuman level. Thus, when Israelis react to attacks from Gaza and don't turn the other cheek - unlike the 1967 War when they were underdogs and they had the world cheering them (and as long as the Soviets were aiding the Arabs) - they're no longer seen as sovereign but as "colonists" curbing the uppity indigenous victims. This does a disservice to the Palestinians and paints Israel with a modern blood libel.

Thursday July 30, 2015, 3:43 am
Debra, you are forgetting (or maybe have been taught) that there were Palestinians in the land when the first returning Jews - mainly early Zionists - came to this land. And Palestinians included Jews, Christians and Muslims.

If you watch link-text, made from old archived films, you'll see that the behaviour of some early settlers was not always exemplary towards those already living there, and conflicts would break out between the new and the old people living in the land.

That Jews have been subject to terrible treatment in the past - and that this has forged the Israeli character today, is undeniable. But equally undeniable is the fact that the kind of abuses suffered by Jews in the past is being meted out by some Israelis today on the non-Jewish Palestinians ... endorsed by modern Zionists and right wing governments. The "Never Again" call has been narrowed to "Never Again to Jews" by some - while other Jews (including Israeli) say "Never Again - to anyone".

The fact is, the vast majority of Jewish Israelis ARE colonists or descendents of colonists ..... they created colonies in the late 19th century. The kibbutz are "colonies". The Settlements being built on Occupied Palestinian Territories are colonies. Claims to a right to be there are tied to a religious link from 2000 years ago, (and remember, far from all Jews even have blood ties back to the Jews of the diaspora of Roman times)
The indigenous people are second class citizens within Israel - and oppressed by the crushing of the occupation authorities. This is a reality. Denial of it is just playing the ostrich. Recognition of it does not mean kicking out all the colonists .... but means facing up to the implications, in order to forge a viable peace process and sustainable solution which all concerned can live with. For the present situation is not sustainable, is not healthy - neither for the Palestinians nor for the Israelis. The extremists on both side who want ALL the land ONLY for them ... have to be brought round to accepting a respectful coexistence. That's a major challenge - but there are enough people of good will & integrity on both sides who want to work on such a challenge. They just are not in a position of influence at present, although they are working on the issue - often together.

Yes - the land is part of the Jewish religious historical heritage - as it is part of the Christian religious historical heritage, and of the Muslims' religious and historical heritage. And part of the latter traces through the influence of Judaism on the later monotheistic religions.

If only you could see how much more you have in common with your Palestinian brothers than you realise ... you'd fear them less and fear criticism of Israeli official policies & strategies less as well.

Thursday July 30, 2015, 6:02 am
There were towns, cities, ports, stamps, coinage reflecting Palestine during the 19th century and showing habitation during all the previous centuries. The Mediterranean coast has been continuously inhabited from before the arrival of the Hebrews from Egypt. Only those with a vested interest in denying the presence of an agricultural people in this area (in order to grab the land) would try to convince people that it was "a land without a people for a people without a land". Even the early Zionists recognised that Jerusalem (then Palestinian under the Ottomans) "had a bride".

To try to deny this, and the culture & indigenous heritage, is folly. There are too many proofs in archives, art, museums etc ....

Thursday July 30, 2015, 6:11 am
When the Sarassins invaded the area, they invaded a land where there were already inhabitants, artisans, peasants, scholars .....

When the crusaders invaded, they were unable to distinguish between the sarassins and the locals, because the locals all looked alike to them - but read about the crusades and you will learn that there were Christians and Jews as well as Muslims, and that far from all the Muslims were from Sarassin origins, or even from the Arabian peninsula . Indigenous people converted to Islam, as many had previously to Christianity.

Thursday July 30, 2015, 10:49 am
The myth that there was only desert between the Jordan River & the Mediterranean is just that: myth. The desert area was, as it is now, down in the Negec & Sinai. There are water courses, springs, wells all along the Mediterraneant coastal strip - used by the Canaanites, the Hebrews, the Phoenicians and by the people living in the area all down through time. The water sources didn't vanish with the diaspora ... They were used for households and for agriculture ... including culture of the ancient olive trees and the famous Jaffa oranges which would be shipped around Europe at Christmas .... by Palestinians. Israelis didn't suddenly turn desert into agricultural land .... Remember - this is the top end of "The Fertile Crescent")

I find it impossible to understand how pro-Zionists could swallow these myths that there was no life, no agriculture, no people in the area until the early Zionist immigrants landed and built their ghetto-like settlements ..... late 19th century.

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